Attention Animal Lovers

I'm a huge animal lover, so this past summer, I just had to join the Scarf Project over at http://www.katillacshack.com/. For every scarf that I designed for my dog or cat, a $10 donation was made towards animals in need. Please head over to this sight and watch the amazing video featuring all of the animals wearing their scarves. Sacco is featured at the beginning (around 2 minutes). Sacco and George are featured back to back (7 min. 11 sec. and 7 min. 12 sec). For every comment that you leave on her site, a $1 donation is made to animals in need. Come on friends...go leave her a comment...and then go hug your own furry friends!

Family Ties

Look who is wearing his daddy's Purdue Boilermakers sweatshirt!Purdue is a local university that Jon and I met at and graduated from. People bleed gold and black here! Henry says, "Go Boilers!" I know that his daddy cannot wait to take him to his first Purdue game!

Jon's mom saved some of his adorable baby clothes, and I am so glad that she did! Remember this shirt that Laney wore?

I have been saving some of the children's clothing, hoping that their children will wear them! (My grandchildren in Matilda Jane?) I'm soooo keeping Jon's baby clothing to pass down as well! True vintage! Ha!

Family baby clothes are just priceless, but so are wonderful family pictures! Here is a picture of Emily hugging her great-grandmother at her (Emily's)soccer game! This was Grandmother's first ever soccer game! Emily and Cousin Megan play on the same team (and Jon is their coach); therefore, all of our family members can watch both girls play. How awesome is it that Emily's parents, cousins, aunt and uncle, both sets of grandparents and GREAT GRANDPARENTS attend the games? I love, love, love living so close to family. (In this pix L to R: Jon's sister, Suzanne (blonde), Emily hugging Grandmother, Jon's dad and mom.

And what would family be without our furry members? Puffy (black and white) is 11.5 years old and George (grey) is 7.5 years old. The Princess (Puffy) loathes who she would call The Beast (George), and this is the closest they have probably ever been to each other (and The Princess looks a bit upset)!

Family ties are truly special!

Henry Is 9 Months

Yesterday, Henry was 9 months old. And what is Henry up to at 9 months? Here's one of his new tricks!

Yes, he will stand by himself for a few seconds!

At 9 months, Henry also:

~is very ticklish! His laugh is the absolute BEST!

~fake laughs to get your attention.

~bats his eyelashes to get your attention.

~loves to squeeze the kitties as hard as he can.

~loves to splash in the bathtub.

~will not stay seated in his wagon (while moving).

~ drinks 8 oz. bottles every 3 hours.

~likes baby food, but is not too fond of people food yet.

~loves to hit "record" on our answering machine, so we have like 30 messages of him breathing.

~can climb the stairs. I walked behind him to see how far he could go. Yep, all the way up!

~sleeps 10 + hours and wakes up with a smile.

~is bored with all 300 of his baby toys. He does like the girls' American Dolls though. Baby boy American doll for Christmas?

~loves a girl with a great necklace on...he loves to chew!

~has two bottom teeth. The top two are ready to pop through any minute!

~is the BEST, BEST, BEST baby that we have ever had or known. He's just so happy!

.....So, how does mommy celebrate her son's 9 months of life? (After putting the children to bed...)Eating a carmel apple on a pretty plate in the bubbled up bathtub while watching Desperate Housewives! (Yes, I have a tv in my bathroom...one of the best life decisions I've ever made!)

Today, Henry had his 9 month checkup.

He:

~weighs 18 pounds (25th percentile in weight).

~is in the 50th percentile in height.

~smiled at every single person in the doctor's office!

~...until he received his first flu shot. He then gave his first ever dirty look...to the doctor! Ha!

.....So, how does mommy celebrate her son's 9 month doctor visit? Stopping by Starbuck's on the way home to get her 1st Pumpkin Spice latte of the season!

Here's my baby boy at 9 months. He loves the tupperware cabinet as much as his sister's did at his age! Can you tell who's who?

Cheers, Henry!

L Is For LANEY

Alphabet Activities was created because Laney and I were really enjoying our one on one time doing little projects. Emily had just started back to school and Laney missed her. Henry was taking some crazy long naps and Laney missed him too. Laney and I have been enjoying our Alphabet Activities so much that we have involved the whole family!

I thought it would be appropriate to have Lauren and Laney Day for the letter L. It was cold and rainy a few days ago; therefore, we knew it would be a great idea to make lollipops! Our lollipops were sure to make anyone smile! We:

1. melted yellow chocolate melts (Hobby Lobby) in the microwave.

2. poured the melted chocolate into some happy face molds (Hobby Lobby has a huge selection of fun molds).

3. added sucker sticks (again, from HL).

4. put the chocolate molds into the refrigerator until hard.

5. added some black gel to the eyes and mouth.

6. tied on black yarn (Laney's suggestion).

We waited until Emily came home from school, then everyone enjoyed! And yes, everyone did smile!

Since it was L for LANEY, Jon wanted to do something special with Laney as well. Their project...a leaf collection! Today, he had her gather different leaves from our trees. She loved her leaf hunt! Together, they posted the leaves onto some cardboard and Jon identified the leaves (He knows them all by heart. Much better than me.) And yep, Laney dressed herself. They talked about the leaves and looked at the different leaf patterns. Laney really liked this project! Emily thought the leaf collection was "neat"!

Laney isn't old enough to do some of the fun activities that Emily gets to do, and she gets a bit bored with Henry's toys and activities, so I know that L for LANEY was very special for her. We are very lucky that our Laney gives us sooooo much love!

100th Post GIVEAWAY

Like many of you, I started my blog because I wanted to journal my day to day family life. I have journals for each of my children, and write in them monthly. I think my blog has so much more to offer my children, because I can incorporate pix as well! Years from now, my family will sit down and just have a ball reading posts from when we were younger!

100 posts later and A LOT of talking (typing), I'm still loving my online blog journal! There are so many of you that inspire me. I get tips about motherhood, home decor, shopping, crafting, recipes, etc. It is wonderful to have such resources! Thank you!

In honor of my 100th post, I would like to give away a piece of my artwork! All you need to do is post a comment on which piece of below artwork that you would like to have! I will draw a name from a jar next Thursday, October 1 and post the winner. **If you would like to enter more than one time, I will add your name for each of the following:

1. become a follower

2. post about the giveaway

Good luck, and thanks for reading!

(All artwork sizes either 12x12, 8x10 or 11x14)

Just About Mommies

Tuesday night was my 2nd night as a gymnastics instructor! Again, I had a lot of fun. BUT... I went to bed with sore legs. It must have been all of those jump demonstrations! Oops! So, here's Instructor Lauren...demonstrating a bridge! Yes, here's what happens when Mommy is the instructor! Emily (on my back) and her friend Isabella (on the mats)! :) Our squirrely fun lasted about 2 seconds. Then, Mommy was ready to spot Emily on her back handspring!

Little gymnast Laney watching Emily's class.

And a bit more mommy news...yesterday I had one of my friends over for coffee cake! Alyssa is fairly new to our little community and I wanted to give her a warm welcome. I remember moving to town as a newlywed and not knowing very many people at all. I now have a lot of wonderful friends and really love this little town. I hope that she has the same experience!

Alyssa is going to be a mommy in a few weeks, and sent me some pictures baby Aspen's vintage cowboy nursery. So, here's my creation! This little cowboy sheriff is ready to lasso any big brothers or sisters! (Baby Aspen will have an older brother and an older sister!)I really love his felt chaps!

Here is our table setting. My grandma made the black and white place mats and I just love how durable they are! Once again, Laney joined us, so she drank her chocolate milk through a straw! :)

Alyssa arrived with some gifts! How sweet! She brought this wonderful scented hand foam! I've already displayed it in my bathroom! It smells great and adds a touch of autumn! She also brought Henry some gifts! Look at all of these awesome clothes! Alyssa has a 5 year old son and these are some of his clothes! Yes, SHE'S the one having a baby and MY baby is getting a ton of clothes! (Baby Aspen has an all new wardrobe in his closet! Lucky baby boy!) Henry and I cannot wait to go through these clothing towers! I am so, so thankful for her great gifts!

All in all, I always say how blessed I am to be a mom. Moms wear a lot of hats: mom, taxi driver, wife, daughter, referee, chef, laundry queen, animal mom, sweeping goddess, doctor, singer, dancer, teacher, artist, event planner, personal assistent, etc. ! I really love connecting and sharing ideas and laughs with other moms!

K Is For Kite

For our Alphabet Activities, Laney knew that she wanted KITE for the letter K. Easier said than done. Here she is last week, ready for kite flying: take one. It just wasn't windy enough. Over the past week, we tried two more times without luck. Well, today after nursery school, Mother Nature was ready to have some kite flying fun with us!

Laney just loves her little Strawberry Shortcake kite!

Henry enjoyed our kite flying time while munching on his toy bee! Bzzzzzz!

After flying the kite, we talked about the letter K and what words begin with this letter. (Words beginning with the letter K were difficult for Laney. She kept coming up with letter C words: cookie, cat, etc. Welcome to our wonderful English language, Laney! Yes, it still confuses me!)

And look what Laney wrote out today! She could not write her name a few weeks ago. Perhaps our Alphabet Activities ARE having an impact on her (or she just responds better to directions from her teacher)! Kool....I mean cool!

Crafting The Blues Away

Happy Fall! Somebody is very excited for the change of season! All he got for autumn was his two bottom teeth! (Yes, that sentence was soooo grammatically incorrect!) Yep, Henry's 2nd bottom tooth popped up on Saturday! He has been chewing on EVERYTHING and the drool? He could fill a pool! Perhaps another tooth has revved up his engine because he is all over our house! His two favorite spots: the stairs and the dog/cat bowls! This little cutie crawls as fast as lightning to his favorites...about 1, 000 times a day!

Because Henry is a bit zippy and the weather has been very, very gloomy, Laney, Henry and I shut ourselves in the art room to craft. (We had to shut ourselves in so we wouldn't have any escapees.) Yesterday we made this little project from paper, fabric, yarn, stickers and leftover glitter pumpkins! Laney was excited about our art project, so we hung it in our kitchen!

Now that fall is officially here, the days are getting shorter (boo!). Here's a pix of the girls before school this morning. Notice Mr. Pumpkin is still lit up due to the gloomy weather? Today was "orange" day at Nursery School (Laney). I am VERY lucky that my girls are early birds. Both were up by 6:45am! They are always happy in the mornings. I need to take some lessons from them (happy morning face) or they need to take some lessons from me (sleep in)! :)

Happy Tuesday!

Natural Beauty

I can definitely tell that fall is around the corner! First of all, on Saturday, Jon took Henry's little red wagon over to our garden and returned with these! Everyone was very excited! I quickly displayed them.

Later in the afternoon, Papa Dave (Jon's grandpa who lives down the lane) got out his motorcycle. The girls just had to take rides up and down the lane. (*Note to self: Laney needs her bike helmet, even if they were only going like 2 mph and Jon and I were basically right beside them)!

Yesterday, when I looked out my art room window I noticed sooo many leaves falling! Our woods looked like it was raining leaves! It was so beautiful!

Later, it did rain, which is nice because it was extremely dusty out here in the country! Inside, Jon and the girls had fun playing "airplane". Here is Laney! Zoom! It was cool out after the rain, but we kept warm by eating these after the girls had their bubble bath! YUM-O! Oh, the chocolate snatcher!

What a beautiful autumn weekend...outside...and in!